A metastatic intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma treated with programmed cell death 1 inhibitor: a case report and literature review

Abstract

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma is a disease with grave prognosis due to limited therapeutic regimens. Programmed cell death 1 (PD-1)/programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor have shown dramatic clinical effectiveness in multiple solid tumors. Here, we report the case that a patient with metastasis intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, being failure of first-line chemotherapy, was enrolled into the Phase I study of a PD-1 inhibitor, sintilimab. The patient achieved complete remission after three cycles of treatment with mild adverse reaction. In addition, the tumor mutational burden and the microsatellite instability status were low in the present case. Hence, PD-1 inhibitor might be a promising therapeutic approach for patients with advanced cholangiocarcinoma.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02937116.

Keywords: MSI; PD-1; Phase I; TMB; intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma; microsatellite instability; programmed cell death 1 inhibitor; tumor mutation burden.